


The Canary

by Kainosite



Category: French History RPF, Political RPF - France 19th c.
Genre: Dark, Legal Shenanigans, M/M, Moral Compromise, Obscure Nineteenth Century French Law, The Restoration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 18:18:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17048222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kainosite/pseuds/Kainosite
Summary: When Béranger is brought up on charges of sedition, Manuel is determined to spare his friend from a long prison sentence by any means necessary.  But the prosecutor Marchangy has plans of his own for the songwriter, and to stop them Manuel may have to find out just how far he's willing to go.





	The Canary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Miss M (missm)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/missm/gifts).



> Manuel and Béranger are sweet and lovely and deserve only happiness, and canon is tragic and depressing, so naturally I looked around and asked myself, "How can I make this _even worse_?"
> 
> Um... happy Yuletide?
> 
>  
> 
> Many, many thanks to J for her lightning-fast betaing skills.

It was strange to find himself walking through the marble corridors of the Palais de Justice. In another life, one in which history had drifted along slightly different currents, Manuel might have come here regularly on behalf of his clients, or even claimed one of these grand offices for himself. Now he came as a petitioner– no, that implied a certain legitimacy. Let there be some honesty in these halls that had heard so many lies: he had come to commit a crime. He had come to perform a small evil that might avert a much greater one, because it was the only way he knew to save his friend.

Tomorrow Béranger would go before the Seine Assizes, charged with offenses against public decency, religious morality and the person of the king, and with inciting the display of a seditious emblem. If he was convicted on all counts, it might mean a prison sentence of years, one his anxious friends privately feared he might not survive. Prison in winter was a grim prospect even for the fittest of men, and Béranger was a pallid, sickly fellow, plagued by violent headaches and a weak chest. He was putting a cheerful face on things, and in his presence his friends affected the same good humor, but amongst themselves they had agreed on the urgent need for a contingency plan.

That contingency plan had brought Manuel to the Palais de Justice, to pay a visit to the man who more than any other held the key to Béranger’s fate.

The magistrature, like all professions, displayed in microcosm the full spectrum of human natures. Although the Bourbons had purged it of many of its most dazzling luminaries, there could still be found within its ranks great jurists, men whose wisdom and mastery of the law shone out from every ruling. There were others who lacked their intellect but nonetheless did their jobs diligently and well, trying to marry justice with compassion and upholding the law as best they could. There were the usual run of mediocrities and placemen who plagued any branch of government, adding nothing of value but doing no great harm. Beneath them were arrayed the outright incompetent, the lazy, and the venal. And then there were men like Marchangy, whose names the members of the bar whispered to each other behind closed doors.

As the chief prosecutor for the Assize Court of the Seine, Marchangy had ruthlessly hounded the enemies of Napoleon, and when the Bourbons were restored to the throne he pursued theirs with equal fervor. He served power, whatever face it wore, and he was vicious in its service: he did not hesitate to distort the truth in order to obtain a conviction or to demand the harshest possible penalties once he had won it. His only thought was to prove his zeal and his loyalty to those who could further his ambitions, and his only true loyalty was to himself.

All this would have been bad enough, but he was also a terrifyingly effective prosecutor. He spoke with clarity and passion, he knew the law inside and out, and his arguments were solid and closely reasoned. He could twist a writer’s words to make it seem as though they had said what they had not, read sinister implications into an innocent phrase and make a jury see them too, and then paint a vivid picture of how that tiny pebble of sedition might unleash an avalanche that would tear apart all of society. Never had there been a prosecutor who better embodied that aphorism of Richelieu’s – ‘Give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, and I will find something in them to hang him.’ He was, in short, Fouché in a toque, and like Fouché he cared nothing for the lives he trampled in his relentless quest for power.

It was this Marchangy whose eye was now fixed upon Béranger.

In one sense, of course, to have the case taken up by such a man was a disaster. Béranger could not have been a more obvious candidate for acquittal: popular, innocuous, a _songwriter_ , for God’s sake. His ditties were a time-honored form of satire and one tolerated by all but the most pathetically insecure of rulers. Any sane jury ought to save the government from itself and laugh the case out of court. But Marchangy had a nasty habit of winning convictions when victory should have been impossible, and he would not have brought the prosecution if he did not think he had good odds of success. There was a real chance that tomorrow’s trial might end with Béranger in prison.

And yet, by a peculiar irony, it was in Marchangy’s character that Manuel placed all his hopes for his friend’s salvation. An honest prosecutor would pursue a case as far as the law demanded and humanity allowed, and permit nothing to dissuade him from the course of justice. But a man like Marchangy, who knew no principle but his own advancement – such a man might be open to a bribe.

The plan was not without its risks. Attempting to suborn a public official might earn Manuel a prison sentence of his own. Perhaps Marchangy would not wish to pit his word against that of a deputy in open court, but even if he chose not to make a formal denunciation, there was nothing to prevent him from gossiping about it, and the rumor alone could do considerable damage. It was for this reason that, when Béranger’s friends had first floated the idea of buying off the prosecutor, Manuel had volunteered himself for the mission. An accusation of corruption might be enough to see Dupin or Dupont disbarred, or to cost Laffitte his reputation for honesty and some portion of his custom, but Manuel had no career outside politics and no private life to speak of. Out of all of them, he had the least to lose.

There was a second reason which he had not told them. They were all good and loyal friends: Dupin had refused to accept any fee for representing Béranger in this case; Laffitte had authorized Manuel to offer as much as 250,000 francs for Béranger’s liberty. But in his heart Manuel knew that none of them would press their suit as passionately as he would, or were prepared to sacrifice as much. And there were none who would make so satisfying a conquest. He had read the transcripts of Marchangy’s trials: there was a streak of cruelty in the man, an appetite for domination. Marchangy did not merely wish, as any good lawyer did, to triumph in the courtroom, but to crush his enemies beneath his heel. And Manuel knew only too well how his unyielding opposition to the creeping despotism of the Ministry enflamed the passions of the men of the right. To see the great Manuel reduced to petty bribery, to see him humbly beg for the life of his friend – to a man of Marchangy’s temperament that might be worth more than the 250,000 francs.

For Béranger’s sake he was willing to do all of that and more. It was painful to think of his friend sitting all alone in his little garret, scribbling his verses by candlelight, with only a thin blanket wrapped around his shoulders to warm him. Béranger had no fireplace, and every winter he caught a dreadful cough. A thousand times, Manuel had begged him to move in with him and spare himself these privations, but every time Béranger would refuse. “You are a politician,” he would always say, with a kiss to take the sting out of the words. “You know I cannot compromise my independence.”

Prison would be infinitely worse than that wretched garret. Béranger would not be able to warm himself by his friends’ fires or fill his belly at Laffitte’s table, those little amenities that kept him going through the bitter months. Then he would really feel the wind through the worn patches in his shabby coat. His poor bald head would be blue with cold. Manuel could not bear to think of it. Worse still, they might send him away to Mont-Saint-Michel or one of the other far-flung prisons, where Manuel could not even visit him. To imagine him shivering in some frigid cell, coughing his lungs out, perhaps dying, alone, seventy leagues from Paris and all who knew and loved him – Manuel’s pride and honor would be worth nothing if they could not save his friend. To avert that appalling vision, he was prepared to throw away both.

One more flight of stairs, and he found himself standing before the fateful door. A harried-looking clerk opened it at his knock. Manuel had made no appointment, for he could not afford for Marchangy to decline his request for a meeting, and it struck him that if his mission did not succeed it would not be the worst thing in the world to have interrupted the prosecutor in the midst of his preparations for the next day’s trial. Accomplished orator though he was, Marchangy always read off his speeches; there were few men who shared Manuel’s gift for improvisation. If Manuel’s unexpected arrival distracted him at a crucial moment, so much the better. At the very least, Marchangy would be forced to see him. Manuel did not believe that even the Attorney General of the Seine Assizes would have the nerve to turn away a deputy who had actually appeared on his doorstep.

Certainly his clerk did not. When Manuel gave his name the man’s eyes widened in alarm. He swallowed, gave a twitchy sort of half-bow, and bade him enter.

Marchangy looked up at the disruption and met Manuel’s gaze with heavy-lidded eyes that betrayed no apparent surprise at his unannounced visit, as if it was merely a predictable ploy in some chess game that the prosecutor had played out several moves in advance. Perhaps it was. Manuel had never attempted to bribe anyone before, but Marchangy had put dozens of innocent men behind bars. Perhaps all their friends tried this.

“Monsieur le Député. Well, well. To what do I owe this honor?”

“I wish to speak with you about the Béranger case. In private,” he added, nodding at the clerk, who was hovering nervously behind him.

Marchangy smiled. He had the sort of blunt features that could make a face look clever or stupid, depending on the mind that animated them. On Marchangy they suggested a sort of calculating malevolence – not a quick wit, but a tenacious one, a remorseless intellect that clicked steadily along like clockwork and would grind any obstacle to powder.

“Who am I to refuse a deputy? Run along home for the evening, Didier; I can finish the rest of this myself.”

The clerk nodded, gave Marchangy a rather deeper bow than he’d given Manuel, and scurried off.

“You embarrass the crown with this absurd prosecution,” Manuel began without preamble, once they were alone in the room. “You should drop the charges.”

“Mm.” Marchangy placed his pen in the holder, capped his inkwell, and blotted the paper he’d been writing. He set it carefully aside, and then pulled a book from a pile on his desk and opened it to a bookmark. Manuel recognized it as the latest volume of Béranger’s work.

“The crown finds itself more embarrassed by M. de Béranger’s doggerel. Kings have such delicate feelings, you see, and this sort of thing:

_‘And last, could you, without a qualm,_  
_Greasing the Holy Spirit’s palm,_  
_Make some ridiculous accord_  
_With your father in Christ our Lord?’_

Well, we really can’t have it.”

“It’s a _song_.”

“It’s an insult against the king and the Holy Church. Which is all very well in moderation, of course, if it stays in the goguettes and the wineshops where it belongs, but when the author has the audacity to publish it under his own name he must expect certain consequences.”

“For writing a song? A song about a fictional character, I might add. If the king sees himself in the Prince of Navarre he has only himself to blame for it.”

Marchangy raised an eyebrow to indicate that the public prosecutor’s office had a slightly more sophisticated understanding of the concept of poetic allegory.

“You must understand, monsieur, we didn’t set out to trap your little canary. Nobody put out birdlime for him. We were content to let the first volume go entirely. But this?” He tapped the open page with a fingertip. “He flew straight into a windowpane.”

“Don’t call him that. He’s not ‘my’ anything,” Manuel snapped.

Béranger was, of course: Manuel’s friend, his lover, his heart. But the way the prosecutor said ‘your little canary’ made his skin crawl. It was almost as if Marchangy _knew_ – but no, that was impossible. The police had their damned spies everywhere, but they had yet to infiltrate Manuel’s bedroom.

“Ah yes, always so keen to preserve his independence, isn’t he?” Marchangy smiled like a cat that had eaten the proverbial bird. “And yet, here you are.”

There was no good answer to that.

“He’s my friend,” Manuel said lamely. “And he has a weak constitution. If you send him to prison–”

“If he’s worried about his health, that’s something he should have considered before he printed off ten thousand copies of his rotten little verses. The sedition isn’t even the worst of it. Have you _heard_ these? The one about the grandmother? It’s morally repugnant – and disturbingly catchy; I’ve had it stuck in my head for a week. Frankly, I’m shocked that you can defend his conduct, M. Manuel. You have a reputation as such an upstanding politician!”

“I wasn’t proposing to sing them in the Chamber of Deputies. Any of them. But especially not the one about the grandmother.”

“Thank goodness for that. I think several of our ministers might suffer an apoplexy.”

“But there is a difference between endorsing something and tolerating it. If you use the organs of the state to repress a songwriter, you will create the impression that you fear the king can be knocked from his throne by a few couplets. Surely in these volatile times that is not the message we wish to convey to the people! What do you think the reaction will be on the street, if you make a martyr of a man like Béranger?”

“That’s really not a problem for the public prosecutor’s office, M. Manuel. As a deputy you are charged with the welfare of the nation, but my only concern is for the law. Your little canary has broken it, and he must pay for his crimes. What happens afterwards…” Marchangy shrugged. “No doubt your concerns about security are justified, but that is a question you must take up with the Minister for the Interior. If this trial sparks off more unrest… well. It keeps me in work.”

Manuel had not really expected his appeal to moderation and reason to work, but in its breathtaking cynicism this answer was more disappointing even than he’d anticipated. He found himself unable to address Marchangy’s thoughts on civic disturbances, and settled instead on the one thing that seemed like it might be amenable to improvement.

“I asked you not to call him that.”

“I thought we’d established that he is in fact your friend. Or is it the ‘canary’ you object to? Perhaps you’re right. He’s more of a starling.”

“Monsieur, be serious.”

“As you wish. M. Manuel, impressive though your oratory may be, I know you didn’t come here in the sincere belief that you could talk me out of this prosecution. All of France knows your dedication to your principles and your duty – well, I am only a humble prosecutor, but I have mine, and I must follow them. I am a busy man, and no doubt you are as well, so let us cut to the chase. What is it that you want with me?”

“You have said yourself, you have no _wish_ to persecute Béranger. I thought we might come to an accommodation.”

“An accommodation.” Marchangy looked incredulous. “You’re looking to cut a deal? _You?_ "

“As I said, M. le procureur.”

“Forgive me, I’m struggling slightly to– But then, I suppose this is the only way you can help him. You were disbarred, weren’t you?”

“No,” said Manuel, stung despite himself, although he recognized that Marchangy was trying to recover his bearings and the insult was no more than a transparent attempt to regain the upper hand in the conversation. “I was never a member of the Parisian Bar; my application was rejected on political grounds without even being considered. It’s not at all the same thing.”

“And yet, one that renders you equally useless in the courtroom. And so you have come to my office seeking an ‘accommodation’.”

Marchangy was clearly enjoying the moment, so Manuel let him gloat in peace. After a while the prosecutor got a grip on himself and continued, 

“It’s an intriguing thought, M. Manuel, but one I find somewhat perplexing, and here is why. You have no power, no influence. By your own admission, you cannot obtain for yourself so much as a law license. Yet you come to me in the hopes of buying your little bird a commutation. To be blunt, monsieur: what with?”

“It’s true, I have no influence at court or with the Ministry. But M. Béranger and I are very good friends with M. Laffitte.”

Marchangy burst out laughing. This was not a promising reaction, although it was more promising than if he’d immediately thrown Manuel out of his office, as any honest magistrate would have done.

“Ah. No, no I’m afraid I don’t require a loan at the moment. What I require is the Attorney Generalship of the Court of Cassation, and that is something I’m afraid you cannot give me. Although…”

An idea seemed to spring to the prosecutor’s mind then, and he leafed rapidly through the book of Béranger’s songs until he came to another bookmark. This one marked “The Old Flag”.

“You must understand, I cannot drop the charges altogether. Your friend tweaked the nose of the king, and kings are very touchy about their dignity. He will have to answer for it. But you are right to say it is not in the government’s interest to crucify a songwriter. I think we could arrange a more pleasant accommodation for him: three or four months, shall we say, in Sainte-Pélagie, in a well-appointed cell with a nice warm stove. And a small fine, of course, but I’m sure M. Laffitte will cover that expense. Will that suit you?”

“If we can do no better,” Manuel said warily, for Marchangy had not yet named the price of this clemency.

“Believe me, you can’t. But if I am to let your little songbird go, I need something else to put in my bag, do you see? A nice fat pheasant, perhaps, or a brace of quail. So.” He looked up from the book, his sleepy eyes sharp and penetrating, and Manuel had a sudden insight into what it must be like to face him down in court. “What you do know about the 45th Infantry?”

One of Manuel’s great advantages in life, in his legal practice and later in his political career, was a self-possession that bordered on impassivity. He felt things very deeply: his love for France, for liberty, for Béranger, but his was a cold nature. His passions burned in him with a slow, hidden fire, and did not reveal themselves in flickers of emotion on the surface. So when Marchangy uttered these fatal words, nothing of the electric shock of horror that seared through him showed on his face, and he was able to say quite calmly,

“Monsieur, I have not been in the army for twenty-four years. What on earth would I know of an infantry regiment?”

Marchangy made a derisive sound. “The unit is absolutely infested with Carbonarism, and you and Lafayette and Foy and Kératry and half the parliamentary opposition are up to your necks in the conspiracy. We may not have the proofs to charge you in court, but we’re not idiots. And frankly, your bargaining position is not so good that you can play one either. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of the stakes of this negotiation. So let me ask you again: what do you know about the 45th Infantry?”

What did he know? He knew that Marchangy was right: the unit was host to a large Carbonari cell, comprised of many of the enlisted men and junior officers. He knew that they were ardent young patriots, more passionate than wise, perhaps, but sincere in their devotion to their country and their hatred for the foreign powers that had subjugated her and placed a tyrant on her throne. He knew that in the present climate they had no hope of victory. As Manuel had tried gently to persuade them, they had set a course against the current of history, and they could fight the waves until they collapsed from exhaustion without making any headway. What they needed to do was wait for the tide to change, and be ready to strike when that day came. He also knew that as they were young and more passionate than wise, this counsel had fallen on deaf ears.

He knew the names that Marchangy wanted.

It would cost the cause of liberty nothing to give them up. A scattered coalition of law students and second lieutenants, however energetic and resourceful, was not going to defeat the combined might of the army, the state bureaucracy and the police. But oh, in that moment how Manuel wished that it could.

“You’re asking me to furnish information– ” he began, unsure whether to be more insulted or appalled.

“You have nothing else to bargain with. Oh, don’t get huffy,” Marchangy said. “You came in here with the intent to bribe a magistrate; that is a felony, should I accept your offer. Denouncing conspirators is merely your civic duty. Not that I would expect you to do it, under ordinary circumstances, but I have hardly impugned your honor by asking of you what you ought to do as a matter of course, when you came to me in order to commit a crime. Take the deal or don’t, but climb down off your high horse.”

Manuel had to concede there was some justice in this line of argument, but to turn informer was a far greater crime than any he had contemplated.

He had believed he set aside his honor in coming here, that he was prepared to make a sacrifice. He had been a fool. To corrupt a corrupt magistrate, as if any sum of bank notes could tarnish the soul of a man like Marchangy! No bribe could leave an inkier stain on it than the prosecutor’s own blackhearted ambition, no clandestine deal could result in a greater injustice than Marchangy would seek of his own free will. To hand over the money – what was money? It wasn’t even Manuel’s money, and if it had been he wouldn’t have given a damn for it. Béranger had a comfortable income; he lived like a pauper because he gave away almost everything he earned to those more desperate than himself. It was only fitting that in his hour of need his friends’ generosity should replenish some of what had flowed through his fingers like water. And to let Marchangy gloat over him for a minute or two, what was that? What was a bit of injured pride, if it could save a friend from prison?

All of that had been nothing. He had been asked to sacrifice nothing of real value. What Marchangy demanded of him now was a truly base act, a irredeemable betrayal. If Béranger learned he had even considered it, he would never forgive him. 

And Manuel was considering it.

The Carbonarists of the 45th Infantry were young men: fit, courageous, trained soldiers. Prison would not be the hardship for them that it would for Béranger. True, it would mean the end of their military careers, but with the upper ranks so overstuffed with officers in the aftermath of Napoleon’s wars, they had no great prospects of advancement. They would be martyrs to the cause of liberty; their many sympathizers would secure some acceptable employment for them upon their release, and if not Manuel could organize a subscription for them.

Indeed, they might serve their cause better in prison than they could in freedom. There was at present no prospect of them successfully overthrowing the government, but with a precipitate action they might strengthen its foundations. The assassination of the Duc de Berry last year had done the constitutional party untold damage. Faced with the specter of the Terror rising up before their eyes, the moderates in the Chamber of Deputies had panicked and voted with the right, bringing in a suite of repressive laws. The Opposition would be years reversing what the assassin had achieved in a matter of minutes. Imprisoned, the young hotheads of the 45th Infantry could do no harm, and their names would be a rallying cry for all who shared their politics.

But these were rationalizations. Manuel knew that in truth it came down to only one thing. If he had to choose between saving Béranger and some boys he had met for a handful of secret dinners, he could not do otherwise than choose his friend.

“After the trial I will tell you everything I know,” he said in a low voice, and bowed his head.

“You will tell me tonight. Monsieur, I am a man of my word. I expect to find myself in these circumstances again, with some of your friends if not with yourself. If I were to renege on my agreement with you, no one will bargain with me in the future. You will find me scrupulously honest in my dealings; it is a question of pragmatism, not morals, and you may rely absolutely upon my pragmatism.”

Perhaps he could, but if he was to betray the trust those poor soldiers had placed in him, Manuel was going to do it for something a damned sight more solid than Marchangy’s word of honor. The prosecutor must have read something in the grim set of Manuel’s jaw, because he sighed.

“Oh, very well. As a token of my trust, I will share my strategy for losing this case, which you may relay to Me. Dupin. You may rely on him to hold me to account.

“The offenses against public decency, etcetera – all those are merely ornaments, worth a few months and a small fine at most. The real sting lies in the sedition charge. Your little canary could get two years for that. Well, the evidence for it is plain enough: this song, ‘The Old Flag’, eulogizes the tricolor and encourages people to take it up again; it is a prohibited symbol of republican and Bonapartist agitation and M. de Béranger is inciting people to display it. There you have it. But there is something that has been nagging at me. Wait, let me find you the statute.”

He picked up another book and rifled through it until he found the page he wanted, then turned it around on his desk so that Manuel could read it.

“Have a look. The Law of the 17th of May, 1819, Article III and Article V, Section 3.”

“Article III: provocation to commit a crime is a crime punishable by no less than three days and no more than two years in prison, and a fine of 30 to 4,000 francs. Article V, Section 3: public display of prohibited symbols of sedition is deemed a provocation to crime and shall be punished according to the penalties laid out in Article III,” Manuel read out.

“Do you see my difficulty?”

“Not as such.”

“It’s not recursive. Display of seditious symbols is defined as a provocation to crime; it is not defined as a crime itself. What are we to make of a provocation to a provocation? The law does not tell us, and your little bird never waved a flag except in verse.”

“Isn’t that something of a nice distinction? I wouldn’t like to pin a defense on it.”

“It is my misfortune to have Judge Cottu sitting on the tribunal, and he revels in such petty hair-splitting, and in nullifying convictions against obvious malfeasants. He’ll spot the flaw in my argument, and if he doesn’t I can drop a hint while the jury is in recess. In the ordinary way of things the others might overrule him, but if I claim to be aghast at my error and lament that it is too late to withdraw the charge, they will nobly come to my rescue and M. de Béranger’s.”

Manuel followed the legal gossip with half an ear. It was true, Cottu did have a reputation for scrupulous adherence to the law. That and Marchangy’s goodwill were not much to set their hopes on, but it was preferable to relying entirely on jury nullification. The Prefect of the Seine took great care in curating the juror lists.

“I have one more stipulation. Béranger must never know of our agreement.”

Marchangy smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m not an amateur. This situation calls for a certain display of zeal, lest the palace think me derelict in my duties. I will be fulminous and ineffective in the rostrum, and your little bird will believe that he charmed the judges, who took pity on him and saved him from a bitter fate. I’m sure it won’t be difficult to create that illusion – the investigating judge says he found him very amiable.”

“Very well. You have your bargain.” With his heart weighing inside him as if he’d swallowed a cannonball, Manuel said, “The one you want is a sergeant called Bories…”  
  


* * *

  
Manuel did not attend the trial. The mere thought of Marchangy made him feel sick. The idea of listening to him rail against Béranger’s alleged sins for two hours while Béranger sat meek and helpless in the dock was insupportable. Manuel was aware that the piteous Béranger of this vision was somewhat removed from the Béranger of reality, who had cheerfully remarked the night before that he thought he might use the time the lawyers spent on their arguments to compose a commemorative ode about the trial, copies of which he would, as a matter of common courtesy, naturally send to all the principal participants. It made no difference. Manuel wanted to protect him and could not, and it would be torture to see Béranger at that villain’s mercy and be powerless to intervene, or to be faced with the constant reminder of how he already had.

The Chamber of Deputies was still in session and a number of Béranger’s other friends were planning to attend the trial, which would leave the opposition benches somewhat barren. It was easy to plead his duty, to claim that General Foy would need his help in the foreign policy debate and they would have to go and show their support for Béranger without him. No one questioned this excuse. Such a heartless weighing of priorities was no more than they expected of him, and Dupont and Gévaudan, who knew him better than the others, sensed a hidden pain in him and misdiagnosed the cause. If they believed it was a fear of the verdict that kept him away, so much the better.

He heard later what a circus it had been: how the gallery had been so crowded that Béranger could barely make it through to attend his own trial, how spectators had broken windows trying to clamber in, how some of the young lawyers who had come to watch found so little room that they sat down on the floor of the court before the jury box and were scolded for breaching the isolation of the jury, how the gendarmes had come in with fixed bayonets to push back the crowd and the président ordered them to put away their weapons. In the end the jury acquitted on two charges and convicted Béranger on two: offenses against religious morality and inciting the display of a seditious emblem. It was only Judge Cottu’s last minute intervention on the precise wording of the statute that had saved Béranger from a much longer sentence. Everyone agreed that Dupin had pled the case brilliantly, but there was among their circle a sense of palpable relief at a lucky escape.

Manuel, who had told them his negotiation had failed, did nothing to dispel this impression.

The police dragged Béranger off to prison directly after the trial. Dupin had gone back to his garret and brought him some of his things, so by the time Manuel came to visit his friend in his cell the next day, Béranger was already settled in and looking quite comfortable in his new surroundings.

Nevertheless, Manuel was unable to resist the urge to go to him, clutch him to his breast, and embrace him as tightly as he could. After a moment he heard Béranger’s voice, somewhat muffled against his coat.

“Manuel? I’ve only been in here a day.”

“I’m just so relieved you’re all right,” he said, breathing in the warm living scent of him.

“I won’t be if you break all my ribs,” said Béranger, muffled.

Manuel planted a kiss on the top of his head and released him. “Forgive me.”

Béranger cocked his head and studied him quizzically, like a large, balding version of the canary Marchangy had named him. But after a moment he seemed to dismiss his concerns, or at least to set them aside for the present.

“Let me give you a tour of my new lodgings!” he said brightly. “This is my dining table – the legs are slightly uneven, as you see, but I have corrected that fault with this convenient chip of wood – and here is my bed, perfectly comfortable, and here is my excellent stove, which they supply very generously with wood so long as one is willing to pay for it. Since the government has been kind enough to cover my rent and dining expenses for the next few months, I thought I would splurge and indulge myself. Isn’t it cozy?”

“Very cozy,” Manuel admitted. Marchangy’s hospitality had even extended to a new coat of whitewash. With Béranger’s books neatly arranged on the shelf above the bed and his hat jauntily tossed over one of the finials of the chair, the cell looked homier and more inviting than his old garret ever had.

“The company is pleasant too. Yesterday I met all sorts of interesting people who have been thrown in here for political crimes – some of which make mine seem rather meager, I admit, but they all spoke very kindly about my songs. And in the evenings we are locked in and can’t have any visitors, so I will have plenty of peace and quiet in which to write. I’m sure I’ll get more done in here than I would in a whole year outside!”

“That’s… um…” Manuel tried to find a delicate way to say that while he appreciated how much trouble Béranger was taking to put him at his ease, it was not necessary to try _quite_ so hard to find the bright side of incarceration. His talent for improvisation failed him. The trouble with Béranger was that one could never be entirely sure whether the merry Diogenes act was all for show or he really did like living in a barrel. But Manuel did not believe that such a free spirit could be genuinely enthusiastic about a locked door.

“I shall miss you terribly, of course,” Béranger went on in a more normal tone, and took up Manuel’s hands in his. “But you see, my dear Manuel, that I really am all right.”

He glanced over Manuel’s shoulder at the open grill of the door – how quickly one grew accustomed to the restrictions of prison life! – and finding no guard in sight, leaned up to kiss him. Manuel forced himself to kiss back with restraint, like a man who was simply glad to see his lover and not one who had sold his soul for him. This – to have Béranger here, and safe, and warm – was worth any sacrifice. Béranger would never have to know the price that Manuel had paid for it. He would be as happy as any man could be in prison, and in three months he would be free, and all of this would be behind them.

Since Béranger had only the one chair and they could not sit together at the table, they sat down on his bed so that he could show Manuel his progress on the song about the trial and a few others he'd been working on. Every so often he would get up to feed another log into the stove, an action in which he seemed to take a proprietary delight each time, and then come back again to nestle against Manuel’s side. As long as one took care not to look at the grill in the door or the bars in the window, it was almost possible to imagine that the cozy, bright, tidy little room was a cottage somewhere and not a prison cell at all.

“It is a good thing my sentence is only three months, or I fear I would grow quite spoiled,” Béranger said after one of his excursions to the stove, settling back onto the bed and leaning his head against Manuel’s shoulder.

“Yes,” said Manuel. “That is a piece of luck.”

**Author's Note:**

> [The one about the grandmother](https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/%C5%92uvres_compl%C3%A8tes_de_B%C3%A9ranger/Ma_Grand%E2%80%99M%C3%A8re) is the [best one](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHPwvlzc1nQ).
> 
> I owe the first two lines of the excerpt from "The Prince of Navarre" to [William Young](https://books.google.com/books?id=0cAaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA129#v=onepage&q&f=false), whose translation was so inspired I couldn't resist stealing it.
> 
> [Contemporary accounts](https://books.google.com/books?id=jKhXAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false) of Béranger's trial list a number of his friends and associates who came to support him. Manuel's name is conspicuously absent, though probably not for the reasons suggested in this fic.
> 
> Charles Cottu really did intervene at the last minute to get Béranger off the sedition charge on a technicality, a debt Béranger remembered with gratitude all his life. The government quickly legislated to close the "provocation to a provocation" gap in the criminal code.
> 
> Manuel had some associations with the Carbonari, although the precise nature of his involvement is disputed. In reality Bories probably managed to get himself arrested without his help.
> 
> The executions of Bories and the other [sergeants of La Rochelle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Sergeants_of_La_Rochelle) became a rallying cry for the left and secured Marchangy his coveted promotion to the Court of Cassation.
> 
> Béranger had a lovely cozy time in Sainte-Pélagie and enjoyed his stay so much that he continued to write seditious songs until he brought down the regime.


End file.
